Facebook has added a news feed feature that enables users to hit snooze on friends and acquaintances.
The new 30-day time out can be applied to friends who may be too much to take at any given moment.
Seen enough photos of your ex’s wedding? Snooze. Had enough of people like me complaining about Trump and Brexit? Now you can send our ilk to sleep for a month so you don’t end up hating us permanently.
The snooze button can accessed from the drop-down menu on any post that pushes you over the edge.
The new feature is a temporary alternative to the ‘unfollow’ option, which prevents users seeing posts from individuals until otherwise stated.
Unfollow was introduced a few years back as an alternative to the awkwardness of ‘unfriending’ all those people you’re not actually friends with.
In a post on the Facebook Newsroom blog the company wrote: “We’ve heard from people that they want more options to determine what they see in News Feed and when they see it.
“With Snooze, you don’t have to unfollow or unfriend permanently, rather just stop seeing someone’s posts for a short period of time. The people, Pages, and groups you snooze will not be notified. You will be notified before the Snooze period is about to end and the setting can also be reversed at any time.”
Snooze rolls out to all users from today.
Ripping us apart?
Facebook’s announcement comes during the week a former executive expressed guilt for helping to create tools that, in his view, were ripping society apart.
Chamath Palihapitiya, who left his role as VP for user growth in 2011, said: The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.
“This is a global problem. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
